No one expected Jeremy Pruitt to shake up the college football world when he opened Tennessee’s preseason camp with a press conference Thursday. That’s not the first-year coach’s style and, frankly, Urban Meyer beat every coach to the top of the page this week.

However, there was one thing that stood out to me and it was glaring. It was Pruitt’s comments on the Vols’ quarterback situation.

“The quarterbacks are no different than any other position,” Pruitt said. “You have the same amount of competition. … It’s the same as outside linebacker. If you have two guys that are about the same, then you play them both. If one is a little better than the other, then you play him and bring the other one in when the first gets tired. I think the same thing at quarterback.”

That should scare Tennessee fans. Pruitt’s notion on quarterbacks sounds good in theory, but it’s just not true. The quarterback position is unlike any other position in sports. A quarterback needs to be a leader. He’s not just an outside linebacker.

Pruitt’s opinion on quarterbacks sounds like a first-year head coach, which he is. He’ll learn soon in his career that a starting quarterback — or lack thereof — can determine the mindset of a team and the amount of success it can have.

There are two seasons in recent history in which the quarterback position has defined a season. In 2000, the Vols went with A.J. Suggs as the starter before replacing him with Casey Clausen. Both were good quarterbacks. Clausen was just a little better. Clausen also had an innate leadership ability that made him and his entire team incredibly good on the road.

Once former head coach Phillip Fulmer replaced Suggs with Clausen, there was no looking back. Clausen became the starter, won six consecutive games and helped the Vols win the SEC East the following season in 2001. Suggs transferred and had a successful career at Georgia Tech. That was no easy decision for Fulmer, but he stuck by his gut instinct and had a four-year starter ready to lead his team for nearly half a decade.

However, Fulmer wasn’t always perfect in his quarterback decisions. No coach is. Despite having the support of his teammates, Rick Clausen shared playing time with the more talented Erik Ainge in 2005. It was a quarterback carousel that turned into a fiasco. There was no question that Ainge had more physical skills than Rick Clausen, but Clausen could distribute the ball to a group of exceptional skill-position players.

UT bounced back and forth between Clausen and Ainge before finishing the season 5-6. The decision to push Ainge into the starting lineup divided the team beyond repair. Hopefully, Pruitt will ask Fulmer, the Vols’ athletic director, about how to handle the quarterback position.

Fulmer’s best choice on quarterbacks came in 1994. There was an incredible debate among fans about who should replace Jerry Colquitt, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the season opener against UCLA. Fulmer had two good options: Brandon Stewart and a guy named Peyton Manning. Many fans backed Stewart because of his ability to scramble. He reminded many of former UT great Heath Shuler. However, Fulmer deftly went with Manning, which caused Stewart to transfer to Texas A&M, where he had a successful career. As for Manning, he started the remainder of his career, finished second in the 1997 Heisman Trophy race and became on of the all-time great NFL quarterbacks. That was a pretty good call by Fulmer.

Tennessee’s quarterback battle this season will be between sophomore Jarrett Guarantano and graduate transfer Keller Chryst from Stanford. Pruitt could easily go in either direction. (I picked Chryst.) However, once he chooses one, he needs to stick with him. A true two-quarterback system of constantly alternating players just doesn’t work. The one exception would be if there’s a small package for one of the two quarterbacks. Florida’s use of Chris Leak and Tim Tebow in 2006 comes to mind.

That kind of scenario seems unlikely for the Vols this season. Guarantano and Chryst are both athletic, have shown accuracy issues and both have collegiate experience. They’re likely too similar to be a Leak-Tebow type combo.

The best thing that can happen for Pruitt is that the decision is easy, that a clear-cut starter emerges in fall camp. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if both play against West Virginia in the season opener. At that point, Pruitt will need to make a decision for the rest of the season or risk losing his team. The same can’t be said for an outside linebacker.

“We have to figure out who gives us the best opportunity and they will control that,” Pruitt said. “Not us.”

That sounds good, but if UT’s season is riddled with losses as most believe it will be, Pruitt could be tempted to change quarterbacks just to shake things up. That’s when things could get really scary.